Jan Josefsz. van Goyen Leiden 1596 - 1656 The Hague

Window mounted. Small hole and surrounding thin area, towards lower right corner. One or two other thin spots along bottom edge. Diagonal crease, top right corner. Some very light stains and some surface dirt, but otherwise good and strong. Sold in an antique Dutch black wood frame.
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As Hans-Ulrich Beck has described, during the early years of his career, between about 1624 and 1630, Van Goyen made a number of meticulously executed drawings in this pen-and-ink technique;  one whole sketchbook is known, filled entirely with drawings in this medium which are very comparable in style to the present drawing.¹  Almost all the other Van Goyen pen drawings of this type are, however, smaller in scale than the present work, and in most cases they measure either circa 55 by 85mm, or circa 115 by 195mm, the only important exception being the double panoramic view, formerly in the Koenigs collection², which, though only 85mm high, is, at 270mm, almost as wide as the present sheet.  The earliest drawings by Van Goyen that are on sheets comparable in scale to this are some four landscapes in black chalk and grey wash, executed in 1626.³

The use of black chalk to indicate the clouds in the sky is also apparently without parallel amongst the early ink drawings of Van Goyen, but can perhaps be seen as a further indication that the artist is here beginning to explore the techniques and interests that define his subsequent, more typical works.  In the majority of his pen drawings, Van Goyen's style is extremely close to those of his fellow pioneers of Dutch landscape, Esaias and Jan van de Velde, but here, even though the handling of details such as foliage and figures is very similar to the other early pen drawings, we see an overall pictorial conception that is much more akin to the highly characteristic approach to landscape that makes his subsequent drawings so immediately recognisable.  

1. Hans-Ulrich Beck, Jan van Goyen 1596-1656, vol. I, Amsterdam 1972, pp. 6-17, and vol. III (supplement), Doornspijk 1987, pp. 28-33

2. Sold, New York, Sotheby's, 23 January 2001, lot 16

3. Beck, op. cit., nos. 59-62